Price
TaxACT come only in two basic flavors: Free and Deluxe. With the Free Edition, Federal (including e-File) is free, while State (included e-File) is $14.99. With the Deluxe Edition, Federal (including e-File) is $12.99, while State (included e-File) is $7. (The “Ultimate Bundle” is simply getting Deluxe + State for the same price of $19.99; there is no discount.) So if you do want Fed + State returns, the Deluxe bundle is only $5 more expensive than the Free bundle.

They also have a promotion where if you import a PDF copy of your 2013 TurboTax or H&R Block return, you can get TaxACT Free Federal + State for $5, a savings of $9.99 off the regular price. Similar $5 deal for US Armed Forces with qualifying EIN.

Unlike TurboTax and H&R Block, TaxACT supposedly does not base the tiers on your tax situation – for example if you have stock sales or itemized deductions. Instead, it’s more about the level of service and convenience. Deluxe includes things like telephone support, charitable donation valuation assistance, importing from previous year TaxACT returns, and importing W-2 and 1099 forms (where available).

Accordingly, I tried my best to just use the Free version, but as you’ll see below after multiple hurdles and upsell attempts, I finally gave up and upgraded to Deluxe. Note that after you agree to upgrade, there is no way to downgrade again. You have to start over with a new account and username.

Tax Situation
Here’s a quick summary of our personal tax situation.

Married filing jointly, subject to state income tax

Both with W-2 income, as well as some simple 1099-MISC forms.

Interest income and dividend income from bank accounts, stocks, and bonds (Schedule B).

User Interface and User Experience
The 2014 user interface for TaxACT is also cleaner than in previous years. Overall I think it is just fine, but on on a relative basis it felt a little cluttered with smaller text (you can enlarge things with your browser using Ctrl+ or Command+, but then the graphics looked a little off). Everything worked without issue, I just felt more eye strain as compared with TurboTax. There will be screenshots throughout this review.

TaxACT uses the same question-and-answer format as other tax prep software. One way that they are different is that for filling out 1099-INT and 1099-DIV forms, you can use a special forms view where it looks like your actual paper form:

I liked the idea, but in practice it wasn’t that great. 1099 forms may have the same numbers but usually have different layouts from provider to provider, and their model form has spaces for information like address that you don’t even need to enter in the normal Q&A guided format. In the end, the regular way is probably faster.

Importing Data From Previous Years
If you used TaxACT the previous year, it will pull up all of your old tax information only if you upgrade to Deluxe. You’ll get filing status, dependents, address, DOB, SSN, etc. Ironically, you can also import a previous year’s return from another provider like TurboTax or H&R Block by uploading a PDF of your old return – all without upgrading to Deluxe (I guess they don’t want to put up another hurdle for potential converts). So much for rewarding loyalty!

Importing W-2 and 1099 Forms Directly From Providers
Technically, TaxACT does support some W-2 and 1099 direct imports for Deluxe users. But in reality, this feature is very limited as compared to bigger competitors H&R Block and TurboTax. The same W-2 form that I imported successfully while using TurboTax was not available on TaxACT. I got the impression that relatively few employers were supported.

TaxACT does not support 1099-INT from any banking institutions. None.

TaxACT does now support 1099-B direct imports, but only from the following six financial institutions:

TD Ameritrade™

ShareBuilder®

Form8949.com

GainsKeeper®

Raymond James®

Betterment

This is where I gave up and upgraded to Deluxe, as I wanted to test out this import feature. It worked fine, but you will need information from your paper 1099 form from TD Ameritrade and Sharebuilder, as opposed to just knowing your login information. Betterment import worked fine with just login information. You can also import via .CSV file as with other tax prep providers.

The Small Stuff

Having to input W-2 and 1099 forms manually increases the likelihood of data entry errors, and in fact I did make an error but TaxACT caught it as it didn’t make sense relative to my other numbers.

When entering my 1099-MISC information, TaxACT also led me down the same rabbit hole as TurboTax, asking the name and nature of my “business”, trying to determine if it was a hobby/farm/business, asking my business license number, and trying to claim various deductions like home office. I guess that’s just how it is done now by everyone.

Starting in the 2014 tax year, you’ll have to have health insurance or else pay a penalty. I indicated to TaxACT that I had employer-provided coverage for the entire year, and it did not ask for further proof or documentation.

When it came to the foreign tax credit, TaxACT’s questions made it easier to claim it as a credit rather than a deduction, as compared to TurboTax (it is more valuable as a credit).

Upselling and Price Change Tricks?
My goodness. The upsells with TaxACT Free were quite annoying this year, seemingly on every third screen. If you want to import a W-2, you’ll have to upgrade to Deluxe. If you want to import a 1099, you have to upgrade. If you want TaxACT to compare your tax refund if you file Married Joint vs. Married Separate, you’ll have to upgrade:

If you have more than one “Life Event” like getting married, having kids, retiring, owning a home, breathing air (ok I’m kidding on that one), then you’ll have to upgrade to Deluxe. But they don’t make it very clear that this is all just “extra guidance” and not critical to finishing your return. You could easily assume that you need to upgrade if you did any two of the things on this very broad list. Here’s the page so you can see what I mean:

The thing is, TaxACT Deluxe is still cheaper than their competitors by more than $20 if you do both Federal and State! I would say just pay the extra $5, get all the features available, and save yourself the headache of reading their spiel and saying no over and over. It’s still a good deal. If you only have a Federal return and have relatively simple needs, then out of pure cheapskate principle I might try harder to get that $0 return. 😉

The final two upsells are Tax Audit Defense for $39.99 and Data Archive Service for $6.99. I would personally decline both as I’m not sure of the quality of their subcontracted personnel and I can just save a PDF of my final return thank you very much.

TL;DR RecapIn the end, TaxACT did my taxes properly and basically asked the same questions in the same manner as their more expensive competitors. The full-featured version of TaxACT Deluxe costs at most $20 for both Federal and State returns including e-File for both. Their Free Federal version provides a full-featured free Federal return at any income level and for all tax forms. Many other providers have “free” editions that are restricted to certain income levels or are only for 1040-EZ forms with no investment income or business income.

Users should accept that the import feature set is rather weak and you will spend more time with data entry if you have multiple W-2 and/or 1099 forms, including stock sales. In addition, the repeated upsell attempts to Deluxe were a turn-off. I had to read every one carefully and decide “is it really worth the upgrade?” If I was going to pay for the State return anyway, I would have gone back in time and paid the extra $5 upfront just to avoid the hassle.

Bottom line: TaxACT is the best value choice if you just want accurate DIY tax return software and you don’t value the time-saving features of their competitors. If your return is relatively simple, why pay more than nothing (Fed only) or $20 (Fed + State)? If you are doing Federal + State returns and want to avoid repeated upsell attempts, I would pay the extra 5 bucks and upgrade to Deluxe right off the bat. You’ll still pocket some decent savings and you’ll be in a better mood. If you are converting from TurboTax or H&R Block and have a PDF copy of your 2013 return, note their $5 Fed + State deal.

So I need to send in prior year tax returns and W-2s to apply for a mortgage and I am wondering if I sign up for Taxact Deluxe, will I be able to access and download all of them? Just thinking that would save a lot of time over scanning them, but I can’t figure out if this is included in Deluxe or if I would need to pay for the Data Archiving Service instead.

I want to be able to download my 2013 tax return. It looks like it is the same price for the Taxact Deluxe and DAS, so if I can just purchase Deluxe and have it include DAS, that seems like the better deal than just purchasing DAS for the one year I want to access. Can’t figure out if it works this way or not though.

Using the “free” Taxact version this year (tax year 2014). I am quite annoyed that, as far as I can tell, they lock you in to the deluxe version without telling you that you will have to pay for it. They are listed on the IRS.gov site as free tax software but then they force you to pay or have to start over. This is borderline fraud in my opinion. I want to be able to make my purchase decisions knowing the truth, not lies to get me to choose an inferior product. Boo Taxact.

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